VeriFone CEO names management team

Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone payments subsidiary gets a new executive lineup, part of its sales-driven reorganization.

July 31, 19985:20 PM PDT

The new chief executive of Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone payments subsidiary, Robin
Abrams, has named her management team, but it doesn't include George Hoyem,
who headed VeriFone's efforts in Internet payments.

Instead, Hoyem left last month for venture capital firm El Dorado Ventures. Hoyem said
his departure was not related to the reorganization.

Hoyem's departure is the second this year by a key executive involved with
the Secure Electronic Transactions protocol, which was created by Visa and MasterCard, for secure card
transactions over the Internet. Steve Mott, who ran MasterCard's SET
efforts, left his position in
February but was replaced earlier this month by Art Kranzley.

VeriFone's restructuring, originally disclosed in April, creates a
unified sales force and separate units for VeriFone's payment software and
hardware operations. VeriFone has spent heavily to write SET software, but
most of its revenue still comes from counter-top hardware devices used in
retail stores to authorize card payments.

"We are trying to accelerate our time to market," Abrams, named CEO on April 6 to replace retiring Hatim Tyabji, said in an
interview. Abrams, a veteran sales executive with experience at Apple Computer before joining VeriFone,
described the reorganization as sales-driven.

Heading the hardware side, called the Appliance Systems Division, to stress
VeriFone's interest in creating new payment devices such as Internet
telephones, is Pierre-Francois Catte, who recently moved to VeriFone after
16 years at HP, where he was most recently general manager of HP's Convex
division. Abrams stressed Catte's manufacturing, operations, and
distribution experience.

Tom Kilcoyne, formerly head of VeriFone's consumer division that promoted
smart-card readers in the home, leads the new Electronic Commerce Software
Division, which consolidates three separate groups, including the ones
Kilcoyne and Hoyem previously headed.

Running the newly unified worldwide sales operations from Paris is Jan-Erik
Rottinghuis. A single sales force will report to Rottinghuis, although a
dedicated software sales group will continue.

Eugene Buechele, who came to VeriFone last year, heads engineering and was
given the role of chief technology officer.

Although VeriFone to date has concentrated on selling to its traditional
financial institution customers, Abrams says telephone carriers globally
show great interest in VeriFone's smart card technology. Northern Telcom, for example, has used
VeriFone's technology for a smart card-enabled telephone.

"I estimate that probably 50 percent of our electronic commerce sales will
be to accounts or people within accounts where we are not present today,"
Abrams said.

The reorganization also puts new emphasis on consulting, an area run by
Richard Bailey.

"We don't intend to lead with professional services," Abrams said, "but our
customers are asking us to tell them what to do--how to get a handle on this
area."